LAKE COUNTRY SCHOOL MASTER PLAN & PHASE 1 RENOVATION

The Lake Country School is a regional leader in Montessori education. With its main campus in South Minneapolis and a satellite rural campus in Glenwood City, Wisconsin, the K-8 school’s continued stellar reputation demanded a long-term plan for expansion and growth opportunities. Lake Country partnered with Snow Kreilich to perform a thorough review of the main campus’s existing facilities, including their utilization and conditions, and make recommendations for upgrades as well as new facilities, the designs for which would be in keeping with the school’s pedagogical objectives and mission.

To ensure that any resulting master plan wasn’t generic or strictly cosmetic in nature, learning Lake Country’s long-term needs required a robust community engagement effort. Students, parents, teachers, and staff participated in a curated series of community surveys designed to assess the educational institution’s programming priorities, financial goals, and strategic needs. Further, these stakeholder groups were engaged in open collaborative dialogues and brainstorming sessions meant to inform the school’s future. Survey data and feedback from key constituents revealed a clear consensus: Lake Country School needed more administrative space, more flexible classrooms, a centralized community space, and a new secure entrance.

The design team approached the master plan by developing four distinct yet complementary phases that synchronize growth of Lake Country’s main campus with the projected growth of the schools finances, personnel, and student body. These phases are staggered in ten-year intervals over the ensuing three decades to ensure that all growth is gradual and implemented with care.